EUROPEAN RAMAZZINI FNDN. STANDS BEHIND ASPARTAME STUDY RESULTS

If you have ever been in a college science lab or professional laboratory, you know the lab results you see are REAL. Professional scientists of the caliber of Dr. Soffritti and his research team at The European Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences "B. Ramazzini" in Bologna, Italy don't take their aspartame research lightly, and they don't make careless mistakes. The study they performed on aspartame is one of the finest and well-respected laboratory studies proving the known dangers of aspartame.

What we are witnessing as a result of the 2005 Italian study is a corporate panic to disengage public awareness of the truth. The marketers and manufacturers of aspartame are rallying in an effort to discredit the independent study's damaging results, and they are lobbying to resurrect their worn-out, payrolled corporate studies from 30 years ago to justify their claims of safety and resulting monopoly on the diet food industry.

The issue concerning the proven dangers of aspartame has become nothing but a "he said - she said" yelling-match pitting corporate profits against good science. Discrediting exceptional science as shown in the Ramazzini aspartame study is an injustice to mankind and to the heath of our future.

Aspartame safety is most definitely a political issue, securing mega-profits for a chosen corporate few at the expense of human health. To each individual who signs their name to legislation ignoring the Soffritti study, and to the lawmakers who publicly defend aspartame as a safe food chemical, may you be personally held responsible for the human suffering caused by your misleading words.

The European Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences "B. Ramazzini", the sole sponsor of a long-term carcinogenesis study demonstrating that aspartame is a multipotential carcinogenic agent in rodents, responded today to the opinion announced by the European Food Safety Authority's Panel on Food Additives, Flavorings, Processing Aids and Materials (AFC).

Scientific Director of the European Ramazzini Foundation and primary author of the aspartame study, Dr. Morando Soffritti, M.D., underlined the importance of EFSA's interest in the European Ramazzini Foundation's aspartame study saying, "as the Director of an independent, non-profit institution, I consider it an important recognition to have our data carefully considered by EFSA." Prior long-term carcinogenesis studies on aspartame (4 total) were conducted over 20 years ago by the producers of the artificial sweetener using a small number of animals per sex per group. The results of these studies provided the basis for the current opinion regarding the non-carcinogenicity of aspartame.

In responding to the AFC panel comments, Soffritti noted that "what the panel considers shortcomings of the study are instead distinctive and positive characteristics of our research protocol, research which has provided the scientific basis for changes in international regulations numerous times over the last 30 years." For instance, the European Ramazzini Foundation conducts what are known as lifespan mega-experiments, meaning that large groups of rodents are allowed to live out their natural lifespan and are examined for histopathological changes upon spontaneous death. This model is in contrast with most laboratories where rodents are sacrificed at 110 weeks of age (representing about 2/3 of the lifespan). The Ramazzini study design closely mirrors the human condition in which persons may be exposed to agents in the industrial and general environments from embryonic life until natural death. "Since 80% of cancer is diagnosed in humans over the age of 55, it is of paramount importance to observe how an agent affects laboratory animals in the last third of their lives", notes Soffritti. He added that "occurrence of chronic pulmonary inflammation is common in the natural dying process. Moreover, inflammation was observed in both animals who were treated with aspartame as well as in the control group."

With regard to a pathology review, it was not deemed appropriate or necessary to subject a small subset of the 34,000 slides to external review, especially given the statistical power of an experiment of this size. Slides of previous carcinogenesis studies on aspartame were not reviewed by the AFC panel, an action that Dr. Soffritti believes should have been obligatory in light of the European Ramazzini Foundation's results, at the very least those involving haemopoietic and lymphoid organs and tissues. At the highest dose level tested in the Ramazzini study, 25% of female rats bore lymphomas-leukemias compared with 8.7% in the controls.